Brothers
by Kwaj
Summary: Carver Hawke reflects on the death of his sister Bethany, and the damage it has caused him and his family.


_It was my fault._

He never spoke the words, but Carver knew they were there, written plainly on his brother's face.

Mother was out, shopping for groceries among Lowtown's markets. Uncle Gamlen was gone too –likely, Carver suspected, visiting the Rose. That left him alone in the shack the family shared. Alone with his brother.

Tobias Hawke looked nothing like the rest of his family, Carver reflected. The twins took after their mother. They were Amells, dark of hair and eye. Tobias Hawke had the striking features passed down to him from his father –his tanned skin clashed with his shock of blonde hair and beard, and his vivid green eyes lent him an exotically handsome appearance.

Tobias. Handsome, talented, charming Tobias.

Carver was the youngest of the three Hawke children. He alone was not born with the curse –or was it a gift?- of magic which had been passed through his family for generations. His father had it. His brother had it.

His sister had it.

Bethany was the elder twin by a full ten minutes. Like many middle children, she naturally assumed the role of peacemaker in the strange family dynamic that falls between siblings. Her brothers warred constantly –Tobias excelling at everything he put his hand to, while Carver, the youngest and most ignored, fought constantly for his big brother's attention, his approval.

They clashed more and more often as they grew older, as Carver grew to resent living in his brother's shadow. Bethany's mediations between her brothers grew less and less effective. Angry words were exchanged. His older siblings were both mages, and he knew, deep down, that despite the burden of their power, they were special for it –marked for greatness, as it were. The Maker had chosen them, for whatever reason, to be blessed with the curse of magic.

Carver had no such blessing, nor the curse accompanying it. His destiny, whatever it may be, was marked by neither demons nor magic. Whatever mark he would leave on the world would be left on the merits of his own sweat and blood, nothing more and nothing less. There was a kind of honor in that, Carver believed, and he took satisfaction in the thought.

When he was sixteen, he realized that he could not live any longer in his brother's house. Their father had died the year before, and with his passing came the sharpest pain and loneliness Carver had ever felt in his young life. Until now.

He had departed in the dead of night, leaving only a note hastily scrawled by candlelight to explain where he went and why he had gone. Mother had cried all the next day and that night, Bethany wrote to him, her words causing a stirring of guilt deeper than he had been prepared for. Carver had accepted the inevitability that his departure would hurt her, but this was something he had to do for himself.

He joined the army. He was young, he was strong, and he was brave to the point of foolishness. He served under his king, fighting for lord and land. For the first time in his life, Carver had found purpose in his life –perhaps even something approaching happiness, that curious blend of joy and contentment.

And then came Ostagar.

Carver finally had begun to feel at peace with himself. He had made friends, brave men and women he fought and drank with, laughed with, grew to love. There was Brocca, the big, burly man from Dragon's Peak who had the crushing handshake, booming laugh, and enormous appetite of a circus bear, and nearly as much hair. There was Aric, the quiet young man from Highever, who said little as he sharpened his knives at the campfire but had once saved Carver from a pack of wolves while scouting deep in the Wilds. There was Farris, the Antivan with his dark skin and strange accent, as quick with his tongue as he was with his sword. And there was Dani, the sweet, tender Redcliffe girl who had won Carver's shy affections when she had knocked his ass into the mud at their first meeting. Her hands moved across the bowstring as easily as they did her harp, and Carver had fallen asleep many nights to her gentle playing, dreaming dreams of longing.

He had watched them all die, one cut down after the other. Brocca fell with a darkspawn arrow through his throat, his mouth still open with the last breath of his bellowed challenge to his foe. Farris was stabbed through the back as they ran from the horde, the ghost of a laugh still on his lips. Aric was the last to die that night, shielding his remaining two companions from the hellish flames conjured at them by a darkspawn sorcerer. Despite his grievous burns, he slew his killer, throwing himself onto the mage and over the edge of the cliffs of Ostagar. Wounded and horrified at the massacre, Carver and Dani limped away, the sole survivors of the regiment he had come to regard as family. Even now, years later, he still saw their faces when he dreamed.

Dani's death came two days later.

She had grown weak. The Taint had taken hold –her wounds had festered with the corruption of darkspawn blood. She had collapsed as they ran north, hoping against hope to reach Lothering before the swarm. Carver had pleaded with her, yelled at her, begged her to stand and keep moving. She could respond only with feverish murmurs –dreams of dragons and voices whispering from the depths below Thedas. Carver had cried, screamed profanities at the wars of archdemons and kings, at the Old Gods and the Maker himself, cursing them all for the poison running through the blood of the girl he had not yet had the chance to love.

In her last lucid moments, she had begged for the end. Carver had wiped her tears away even as they mingled with his own, kissed her once upon the lips, and slid his blade between her ribs. But it was his heart that had felt the cut most deeply.

He had limped back home, a boy no longer, tired and haunted by the carnage he had seen. But there had been no time to rest. The horde was upon their doorstep. The Hawke family gathered their things –Mother's jewelry, Father's staff- and ran as Lothering burned behind them.

He had feared his return –how would his family look at him, the pariah returned home? But the swarm was coming. He had to warn them.

He needn't have feared. One look from Mother was all it took to know that he was forgiven. Leandra let out a strangled sob and swept Carver into her arms; her baby boy, now grown so big, with more pain written upon his face than a boy of eighteen had any right to. Bethany embraced him as well, smiling. "I missed you, little brother," she had smiled.

Tobias said nothing at first, and Carver looked at him defiantly, daring the eldest Hawke to comment on his abandonment. _Let him condemn me, _Carver thought. _ He knows nothing of what I've endured._

But Tobias had shaken his head, a rueful little grin on his face, quipped something clever, and clapped his brother on the back.

Maybe that was why Carver resented him so, he reflected. Not just the talent, the effortless charm, but the way nothing ever seemed to faze Tobias. Nothing could penetrate his emotional defenses. No matter how grave the situation, Tobias always had a joke on hand and a smirk on his lips. Carver was vulnerable, as was Bethany. But Tobias took the world in stride.

It all happened so quickly. The darkspawn were upon them before they had even left their home; Carver remembered flames engulfing their small farmstead as they fled with little more than the clothes on their backs. They had met the templar Wesley and his fearsome wife, Aveline, and together had cut a path through the horde.

And then she was gone.

A rumble of the ground, and the hulking ogre charged up the small hill they found themselves on. It towered over Leandra, roaring, spittle flying from its fanged maw. Carver and Tobias stood and watched in horror as Bethany put herself between Mother and the beast, as it brushed away her flames and reached for her-

Carver shut his eyes. The memory was like a hole in his heart; when he went there he felt only despair.

He had not cried for Bethany, even now. After all the death he had seen –Father, Brocca, Farris, Aric, Dani- he had no tears left in him. It was as though all the water and the softness had gone out of him, leaving him with something hard and dry inside. But it was Bethany he most grieved for.

They were twins, together from birth. She understood him better than anyone living. She tempered his anger, soothed his fears, calmed his frustrations. When she died, a part of him had died as well.

Tobias was the eldest. He had always claimed responsibility for his family, especially after Father died. But when the ogre came, he stood frozen in horror and did nothing. For all his magic and his prowess, he had failed to protect the one person Carver loved most.

Carver looked over at Tobias again. His brother was seated at the family desk, reading a letter. Sensing his gaze, Tobias looked up, and for a moment their eyes met, and Carver knew that they were both thinking of their lost sister.

There was a sadness in Tobias's eyes that had never been there before. His easy, laughing smile never reached those eyes anymore. They were filled with guilt, haunted, almost pleading for forgiveness.

_Whose forgiveness?_ Carver wondered. _Mother's? The Maker's? Bethany's? Carver's? His own?_ _He can't forgive himself for what happened._

The words were there, plainly etched on Tobias Hawke's face. _It was my fault._

And Carver agreed.


End file.
